Mother Nature Needs a Better Calorie Counter

Mother Nature is amazing in the things she does well. She figured out how to let the chameleon change color to protect itself. She puts white on the back of bobcat ears so predators think they are seeing a face with eyes instead of a back of the head. Female horses stop ovulating in the winter so their babies, who are born precocious, will enter the world in spring when the grass is rich and plentiful.

When Mother Nature misses, she misses big time. Take for example the eating requirements of husband and wives. My wife, Ranae, and I have been married for 35 years. I do most of the cooking now simply because I enjoy it. It’s often difficult preparing food for just two people. The thought of leftovers doesn’t appeal to me, although I’ve come to accept it.

I seem to be able to stuff my gullet without increasing my overall weight. On the other hand, I can get so involved in a project that I’ll postpone eating for hours. I simply forget. Ranae gets cranky (good thing she doesn’t read these).

Ranae’s caloric requirement are so much less than mine. We have similar activity levels, yet I need so much more food than she. If she doesn’t watch her intake carefully she is penalized unfairly by Ma Nature. I would have thought the girls would have bonded a little closer over this issue. Maybe she did try to do something, but it backfired. Maybe when women reached menopause they were suppose to burn more calories and Mother Nature just screwed up.

While we owned the health food store this was a common problem in the Hispanic community. A Hispanic man would come in because his doctor told him he was too fat and at risk for diabetes. My suggestion would straightforward; cut back on portions and lay of the sweets. His response most often was that his wife would be offended if he didn’t not eat. She would spend a good part of the day preparing the meal and his job was to consume. Quite often he found his way into eating himself into gout, arthritis, and obesity.

While it was most obvious in the Hispanic community, I think the problem is universal. The problem is that the person preparing the meal gets their feelings hurt when the food is not eaten. Add this to the trend in restaurants to increase portion size and it’s no wonder America is having to loosen its belt.

As we near the end of Winter, Ranae has made it known I have to prepare less food. My mother is rolling in her grave while Mother Nature sprouts all sorts of wonderful delights in our garden.

Politics Offers a Lesson

First, let me say I’ve never written a political blog post. I don’t care about politics or who becomes president. I believe it doesn’t make a bit of difference who is in the White House. The bureaucracy is so huge, one man can’t make a difference. I believe that government is best left to fixing roads and defending the borders.

But there is a lesson to be learned about this election, just keep trying. Back in my younger days, before I became jaded and cynical (just kiddin, I’ve always been jaded and cynical about politics), I thought the government needed to be run more like a business than, well, a government.

That was a long time ago (for me). Pierre “Pete” duPont threw is hat into the ring. Mr. duPont, of Dupont Chemical fame worked for the giant corporation for seven years before coming to politics. Pete wanted to get welfare recipients into the workforce, allow people to fund their own retirement in exchange for less government benefits, and require students to randomly take drug tests and if they failed the test, they lost their license. Oh, and he wanted to end subsidies for farmers. duPont finished next to last in the New Hampshire primary and dropped out of the race. I thought his ideas made sense, but never got a chance to cast a vote for him. Talking about ending farm subsidies in Iowa, while bold, is not likely the best politics. That was one of the reasons I liked him; he wasn’t the usual politician.

Ross Perot came along in 1992. Another businessman with a lot of money, Ross wanted the country to be run more like a business. He wanted a balanced budget, a stronger war on drugs, and town hall meetings to discuss the serious issues of the day. Ross spent a bunch of his own money on his campaign. He took donations, but had a $5 limit. Again, not run of the mill politics. While Ross came across as a tough and savvy businessman, he was manhandled as a politician. In the summer before the election he was holding his own against Bush and Clinton. The found was to attack him and he dropped out. Quit. Then he jumped back in in October. The country had supported him because he hadn’t been wishy-washy and then he was.

The Donald is in the race now. I think he is spending his own money. He seems to have touched the heart of one segment of the electorate. He’s making people nervous because some say he has a chance to win.

The lesson of politics: Keep trying. You want blacks to be free, keep trying. You want women to vote, keep trying. You want gays to be able to marry, keep trying. You want a businessman to be President, keep trying. If it doesn’t work the first time, repackage it and try again. If it doesn’t work the second time, change the name a bit, and try again. Eventually you’ll figure out how to make it happen.

Cloud Computing a New Form of Skywriting

You’ve heard of cloud computing, right? I have three computers because I hate getting rid of technology. Well, four if you count the old laptop buried somewhere deep in a closet. Two desktops, one from 2008 and one from 2011 and another laptop from 2013.

They were necessary when I ran my retail business. Had to have one at the shop and one at home. When I “retired” I needed to get the laptop, thinking I would use it for my traveling photography business.

As a computer user since the 1980’s imagine how much digital information I’ve gathered over the years. Thankfully, hard drives have gotten bigger and cheaper so storing much of the data is far easier than it used to be.

Yesterday the 2008 desktop gave up the ghost. It is a scary feeling when a computer goes kaput. The Eight as I used to (affectionately) refer to it (now the adjectives are far more salty) had a pretty good run. As a matter-of-fact we had just finished collating the last year’s taxes for preparation. Yes, I know what you’re thinking and you are right, I DO wish I had printed my tax stuff before I shut the machine down.

Good thing it wasn’t THAT important. It was only tax information after all. What if it had been my great American novel? What if those hard drives were full of my journals and writings? Without a backup, I’d be a gonner. My book would never be turned into a screenplay. Johnny Depp would get never get cast in the leading role. His acting comeback would fizzle and he’d spend the rest of his days playing rock ‘n roll with the band you saw on the Grammys last night. He would die far too young and…..wait, wait.

Sorry, getting a little carried away here. I’m not really sure Mr. Depp is right for the protagonist in my novel. And, besides, all my writing is up on the Cloud now. It’s all safe. Google and Microsoft with their Google Drive and OneDrive products insure that what I write is safe no matter what (excluding Armageddon, of course).

Of the two free services, I prefer Google Drive, but I use them both. The Docs app allows me to write on any device, computer, iPad, even iPhone. If you are not connected to your drive, it won’t let you write. And, every keystroke you make is backed up immediately. If you type something on your iPad while your computer is turned off, once you flip your computer switch on, the files sync up. There are storage limitations, but I’ve been using Drive for years now and have barely used 50%. When you create a doc in the Google Doc app it does not go against your memory limitations.

Microsoft has a couple of good tools too. Their OneDrive offers competitive storage and can take Word and Excel docs. The Microsoft OneNote app is quickly finding its way to the top of my app chart. Get an idea you want to jot down quickly? OneNote is perfect for this. It even has tabs so you can separate notes my subject.

With Cloud computing the need for a large computer and hard drive is going away. Let the experts store this stuff. They have so many redundancies something major would have to happen for me to lose anything. Once I don’t need a computer anymore to store my writings I can go back to putting my tax stuff in an old shoe box.

Learning to Dance

Just so you know, learning to dance is best done at an early age. Awkward, self-conscious, uncoordinated were my reasons for putting it off. That, and it just didn’t feel “important” at the time. If you didn’t learn to dance when you were younger, don’t worry, the good news is you can start from wherever you are in life.

My Dad would come by my business about once a week or so for a visit. Mom had passed away suddenly a few years earlier and my Dad was devastated. After about a year of mourning, he did what he had done all his life: picked himself up, and got back into the game. First it was tennis. He found a group that met Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays at the park. No one was under 50, most were over 65. They would play until about 10 am, then head over to the local fast food place for coffee.

One of the players mentioned there were “Line Dance Lessons” at the local Rasmussen Senior Center. They were five bucks on Monday nights and soon Dad was learning to dance. After a few lessons, he would go to an occasional dance. This was my Dad. He’s nearing 80, Mom had been gone 5 or 6 years at this point, and he’s playing tennis 3 times a week and dancing twice a week.

About this time my wife, Ranae, had a new co-worker who is very much the ballroom dancer. “Learning to dance is easy,” she says. Of course she’s a dance instructor too. She does convince us to go to a local event where there would be social dancing and, more importantly, and exhibition of some “must see” dancers. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times my wife and I had danced since our wedding day 25 years ago. But, the food was reported as excellent and the entertainment guaranteed, so what did we have to lose?

I know I’m zig-zagging all over the place right now, but stay with me if you can. For 30 years I ran a local health food store. THE most valuable part of that experience was my interaction with our customers. We were small and I got to follow along over 3 decades of their lives. I had customers long enough to see their kids grow up and get married. There were many who had to take care of aging parents and the parents had been customers.

Through this interaction, I had a front row seat on how lifestyle affected quality-of-life. By observation I learned what help some customers reach 90 and others were burning out in their 70’s. No, it is not scientific. Certainly there were a few customers over the years that took really good care of themselves and died young anyway. But for the most part, those that were happy and active lived the longest.

Back to the dance exhibition. I had never been to anything like this before. A room full of 200 ballroom dancers of all ages, but most were over 50, dancing it up. Everyone was smiling and having a good time. The majority of them were trim and fit. I had studied yoga for the previous five years and very few people in the yoga studio ever looked to be having as much fun as these folks. “There might be something to this dancing stuff,” I thought to myself.

The very next week my Dad stopped by the store for a visit. He had a flyer in his hand and announced the Levan Institute at Bakersfield College was going to hold ballroom dance lessons and they were open to everyone. “Great!” I say. “You’re adding ballroom dancing to your line dancing. Good for you.”

“You too,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You and Ranae have to sign up for the class. We have to make sure there are enough people enrolled or they will cancel it.”

When your 80 year old father tells you that you have to take a dance class so HE can take a dance class, you can’t turn him down. He even talked my older brother and his wife into signing up and their feet were even more left-footed than ours. On the first night there we were, the 5 Harrers, along with the 40 other people that packed the class my Dad was certain to be cancelled.

The class lasted six weeks and we had a great time learning the Foxtrot and the Waltz. We went on to join the Bakersfield Smooth Dancers and take their lessons on a weekly basis. We lost Dad in 2012 two months before his 90th birthday. Ranae and I dance every week now and I’m still awkward, self-conscious, and uncoordinated, but we have fun and laugh, and it sure beats the hell out of doing yoga.